


the shadows bring the starlight

by subtleandperfectandreal



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Angst, Depression, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pining, Sad Moritz Stiefel, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, gun mention, rated teen and up bc suicidal thoughts from mo, vaguely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtleandperfectandreal/pseuds/subtleandperfectandreal
Summary: Summary: Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind, except Moritz decides to take Ilse’s help at the last second and lives. He finds out that maybe he’s not alone, and maybe Ilse is a lot more similar to him than he’d thought.
Relationships: Ilse Neumann & Moritz Stiefel, Ilse Neumann/Moritz Stiefel
Kudos: 4





	1. ch 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! thanks for visiting my work :). Just a quick note, which applies to most if not all of my writing- if you struggle with suicidal thoughts/feelings or self harm, I would be cautious when deciding to read this. This draws on my own experiences with mental illness, and i would hate for any bad feelings or memories to get triggered from this. Please stay safe and take care of yourselves.
> 
> TW: mentions of suicide, mentions of planned suicide attempt, implied abuse from parents (Ilse) (it’s a sentence long though, so not really discussed), panic attack (kind of? not a full blown panic attack exactly, but Moritz is highly anxious in this and pretty much about to break down the whole time. I wasn’t sure if it was enough to be triggering so I’m tagging it just in case), very brief implied dissociation 
> 
> p.s. if you've read this before, you may have seen it on my tumblr (@ musicaltheatrewriting on tumblr)

"Moritz Stiefel?"

Moritz froze, his back to the disembodied voice. His right hand immediately reached to make sure his gun was tucked in his pocket, and he cleared his throat to mask the sound of the gun knocking against a stray button. He blinked the wetness out of his eyes and turned hesitantly, his entire body near trembling. She couldn't have come at a worse moment.

"....Ilse? You frightened me," he said, an edge to his already fragile voice. Moritz realized with a pang that she'd changed- that they had both changed. Too much, almost.

He swallowed the lump rising in his throat and looked at her cautiously, like she might be the one person to see through his jacket pocket to the weapon inside. The last time he'd seen Ilse was… what was it, a year ago? That was before she ran away to an artist's colony. Before the rumors started about what her parents did to her. Her dress, a remnant of the upbringing she once had, was tattered and covered in various shades of blue paint. Her hair was much shorter now, and choppy, and she had graphite-possibly dirt-on her nose. 

Ilse gave him a soft smile, "What do you have to be afraid of?" 

"What do I not?" Moritz quipped through a tight, short-lived smile.

Ilse nodded, perhaps in understanding. Or maybe it was just a pleasantry. "I'm on my way home; want to come?"

Moritz blinked hard, still processing the whiplash of this interaction compared to his state moments before. "I- I really can't." The gun was getting heavier with each passing second.

Ilse looked downward at the tall grass surrounding them, "Oh. Are you certain you don't want to walk? Your house is just down the road, yes? Or were you leaving-?"

Moritz shook his head a little too vigorously. This friendly banter was just prolonging the inevitable. "No I- I just can't, I- it's not important. I'm just busy!" The anxiety racking his whole body spilled into his voice, giving his words a slight edge.

This edge was not lost on Ilse, who took it as a snub. "Oh. Well, then." She rifled through her flowers. "I was just wondering. It's been so long, you know." 

Moritz didn't make eye contact. If he did, he'd break. And he'd die before he broke down in front of anyone and confessed to the weapon in his pocket. He bit his inner lip as a last act of refusal towards himself. He wanted to tell her. He couldn’t risk that. If Ilse stayed, then his plan wouldn't work. Not in front of her. If she left, he'd have to convince himself to pull the trigger. Neither option sounded inviting. 

She plucked a baby's breath flower from the bouquet she'd been cradling. "Here."

Moritz looked at the flower, and stole a glance at her face. There was pain there. She'd reached out to him and he'd rejected her. He suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to apologize, to make her stay with him, to do anything he could to have her approval. _Forget it. Forget everything. I just want someone, anyone to talk to._

After all, if she couldn't have sympathy for him in his last moments, who could possibly look back with kindness on the sum of his life? 

_She's my last chance to leave something positive before I go._

Moritz inhaled and braced himself as he grabbed the flower, their fingers brushing awkwardly. Her hands were cold. Moritz kind of wanted to hold them, just to know that someone was there next to him. That this wasn't some awful dream. That maybe, possibly, someone cared about him enough to talk with him unprompted. It had been so long since he’d been hugged, he couldn’t even recall when it was. Moritz tucked the fragile flower next to his gun. Ilse's hand dropped back to her side as she picked the edge of her dress up to keep hiking through the grass. 

Moritz felt his chest tighten as he watched her leave. He felt dizzy, desensitized to his surroundings. It was like leaving his body and being trapped in it all at once. His mind instinctively thought of the worst and his hand went from the flower to the gun. _Not in front of her. Not in front of Ilse. Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it-_

"Ilse!” Quiet sobbing rose in his throat as he fell to the ground, “Wait- don't leave me. Please!"

She looked back at him, concerned. To say he looked drained would have been an understatement. His hair was messier than usual (really, it had gotten worse as the year progressed) and his tie was crooked, either because he didn't know how to wear one, or because he couldn't keep up with caring for himself. Given the school standards, it was likely the latter. One of the buttons on his jacket was missing, a glaring error on the once pristine uniform. Ilse felt a pang in her chest- standing there together, with their disheveled clothing and quiet sadness, looking at him was looking at herself in a different life.

She began to walk back over to him, but cautiously. "Moritz? Are you all right?"

Silence. Moritz just shook his head, his eyes glazed over. "I'm not well, Ilse. I- I don't know what's wrong with me. It's been…. _Years_ now. Every single day is the same. The noise in my head never stops." His shoulders shook and his jaw clenched as he continued to struggle against his sobs coming in waves. "Some days I think this is how it will always be."

Ilse bent down to sit next to him. She just nodded, staring intently at his face, allowing him to finish talking. He looked like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in years.

Moritz took a deep breath and wiped his tears. "Some days….." he took a deep breath, "Some days, Ilse, I don't... know how to live." He looked around, as if the grass would somehow hear his secrets and expose them, and his voice dropped to a low whisper. “I don’t think I _want_ to live.” He directed his helpless gaze at her, desperate for answers, silently asking " _do you know what that is like?"_

Ilse nodded, tears of her own beginning to form. Tears of anger- anger that anything in this world had made him feel so low. Anger that no one cared enough to help him, to help _them_. Anger that they were left to fend on their own with only each other.

Ilse's throat tightened. "I understand." Her eyes met his, and she took his hand and squeezed it. 

Moritz seemed to choke a little at her touch. Ilse wondered when he'd last been hugged or told that he was loved. She sat up on her knees to hug him, tucking his head under her chin. He didn’t shy away from the affection, but buried his head against her collarbone. It was nice to not be alone, to surrender to the comfort of a friend.

"I missed you, my friend. I'm sorry you feel so sick." Ilse ran her finger through his hair, plucking a piece of dead grass out.

Moritz dared to hold her a little tighter, "I missed you too." 

They sat in silence in the chilly spring weather, holding each other. Moritz could hear Ilse's heartbeat through her faded dress. It was an eery reminder that he was, in fact, alive; that the afternoon hadn't gone as planned; that someone genuinely cared about him and wanted him to stay. It somehow felt more intimate than all the things Melchior would talk about. Moritz certainly liked this better at his age, anyways.

"Ilse?" He may as well tell her everything.

She didn't move her head from its resting place above his. "Yes?" 

He took another sharp inhale. The amount of honesty he'd had that afternoon was beginning to alarm him. "I-I brought a, I mean… when I said that some days I feel like… I meant all days, really. Before you walked into the field I was- I was about to-"

He couldn't get the sentence out, but Ilse understood. He'd made plans for that afternoon. "How?"

Moritz squeezed his eyes shut and blurted it out,"I have a gun with me." 

Ilse cursed under her breath and thought for a moment. "Let’s go for a walk to the river and throw it in, shall we?"

Moritz hesitated slightly, but nodded. "All right.”

Ilse stood up and offered her hand. "Well then, follow me."


	2. ch 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Moritz and Ilse go to the lake to throw the gun in, and Moritz feels conflicted about everything that’s happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! thanks for stopping by. Just as a warning, my writing draws a lot on my own experiences with mental health, and if that is something you struggle with, then please proceed with caution. I don't want to accidentally bring up any bad feelings or memories. Take care of yourselves pls :)
> 
> TW: suicidal ideation, mild cursing (that’s Moritz’s fault, sorry), a gun is mentioned a lot in this (but idk if that’s something people usually give a warning for or not)
> 
> my tumblr, where i also post this writing, is @ musicaltheatrewriting

Moritz took Ilse’s hand and got up, brushing the dead grass off his uniform. He let go of her hand, but she kept it extended, expectant. After an uncomfortably empty moment of wondering what she wanted, he placed his hand back in hers, hoping it was the answer.

Ilse furrowed her brow, now equally confused as he was. “No, Moritz. The gun.”

Moritz felt his face heat slightly, and the pit in his stomach grew a little heavier. “Oh. Of course.” He pulled his hand away from hers and gingerly grasped the metal of the gun, warm from resting against his side. _How strange_ , he thought, _to think that moments ago I would have given my life over to this weapon as an act of surrender, and that I now give this over to her so freely._

“Moritz. Give me the gun. Please.”

_I suppose I don’t have a choice._

He pulled the gun out of his pocket with an abundance of caution, as if he might hurt it by his touch. His fingers slowly released from the hilt of the gun as it rested in Ilse’s hand. For a moment his fingers trembled, hovering over the weapon.

_I can't go back now._

Ilse took the gun and began her trek in the general direction of the lake. Moritz followed, several steps behind.

He mostly looked at the dead grass on the ground, thinking about everything that had happened. It was a strange thing, he thought, to want to die. It was stranger yet to confess to it and be met with warmth instead of horror. Strange to have someone that cared and didn’t treat him like a burden. _Damnit, Ilse._

_She ruined everything._

Moritz felt a kind of bitter sadness towards Ilse. How dare she care. No one cared. And yet, he couldn’t contain his gratitude towards her, the relief and hope that inevitably crept into his consciousness when he was next to her. It felt unfair, somehow, that her hope was isolated from the rest of the world; when had she last interacted with her old life since running away?

_We’re not that different, Ilse and I. I only wish I had her resolve. Maybe then I would have gone through with it._

Moritz’s eyes remained on the gun dangling from Ilse’s hand as it swung at her side. The longer he parted from it, the more he began to regret surrendering his way out. He saw Ilse for hardly ten minutes and crumbled instantly, forgetting his many years of agony leading to that moment- how could he? _If only I’d been quicker with it. I could snatch it from her hand and run._ He considered for a brief second. _No, she’d kill me for trying to take it before I could do the deed myself._

Ilse glanced back at him. “We’re nearly there.”

Moritz only felt worse. His old, familiar panic returned as his arms took on a strange, tingling feeling. Anxiety, perhaps, or regret. _Why did I give her the gun?_ He stopped walking. _How could I give up without any resistance?_

“Ilse?”

She faced him. She looked tired and a bit pale, standing in her even paler dress, with wilted flowers at her side in the same hand as his gun. Moritz felt bad breaching the subject, but he really didn’t have much choice now, and he knew his own misery would make it come up sooner or later.

“....You should understand, Ilse, that drowning the gun won’t change how I feel for myself.”

Ilse nodded, solemn. “I know.”

“So…. “ his eyes scanned the field. Perhaps he should have left the subject alone. “What’s the use in throwing it away, exactly?”

Ilse stared at him, trying to pick at his brain as her hand gripped the gun a little tighter. “What are you supposed to do without the gun?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t know how to be alive, either.” His voice then lowered as it always did when speaking of anything taboo. “And we both know I’d rather not live at all.”

Ilse leaned towards him, care in her eyes. She was tough and angry sometimes, but so soft to him, so hopeful. Her hope didn’t make sense- and it almost repulsed Moritz, really.... because if he allowed hope in, he’d _have_ to get better. And Moritz knew in his heart, even as he looked at her, that something like that would never happen. 

Ilse finally spoke, keeping Moritz’s thoughts from going farther, "Moritz, how could it possibly be safe for you to keep it?"

Moritz fidgeted with the edge of his coat. “I-I don’t know. But I can’t give that up, Ilse.”

“I think you can, with time.” Ilse stared into his eyes with such a mixture of resolve and kindness that Moritz felt as if he might combust on the spot. No one ever looked at him as little more than a bad student destined to fail- but here she was, his old friend who seemed to care. “I’ll help you with it.”

Moritz broke their eye contact, choosing to stare downwards. “I guess I just don’t see much point in trying, if the conclusion is the same….if my life will end either way.” The tears were starting to come again. _Damnit, Moritz. Just stop it. Stop crying. She’s going to leave you behind and then what will you have?_

“Let’s just keep walking. We’re almost there.” Ilse grabbed his arm, and began to draw him to the lake. 

“I just... I don’t know how I can just give up my one chance at peace, Ilse.” His eyes looked blank again as he spoke of his way out. “But if I am to throw the gun into the lake, you will have to be there with me to make sure I do it. Do you think you can do that?”

“I do.” Ilse said. "And...I also believe there's a point in trying to get well. Give it a day. A week. Things won't always feel so dark, Moritz. I really believe that."

 _So dark_....Moritz wondered why she'd run away. Perhaps that had been her version of being well again. But looking at Ilse- her tattered dress and anger that sometimes crept in her eyes when she looked away from him- it felt hard to believe her promise of a new life.

They walked the remaining fifty feet to the lake, eventually arriving on a dock. The water’s glassy, cold surface reflected their faces; Moritz’s full of sadness and resignation, as if he’d backed himself into a corner; Ilse’s face holding a sort of tired expression, as if maybe she’d done this before. _Maybe she has weapons of her own to hide_ , Moritz thought. 

He held his hand out again, not for affection’s sake, but to have his old weapon again. Ilse handed it over, but kept her hand on the edge of the gun. 

_What can I say? To my parents, to the school, to everyone- that this is another transgression of mine, another way in which I have failed? Even in death-rather, in trying to die- I can’t succeed. This will do nothing for me; but Ilse is counting on me, now. Ilse says this will help me. And Ilse cares more than anyone else. What choice do I have now, but to hope that she's right?_

Moritz took a deep breath, and the hollow feeling that never left his chest began to lighten ever so slightly as he released the gun into the cold grasp of the lake.

_So long._


End file.
